Delicate Quotes - Page 14

• Brian Turner writes as only a soldier can, of terror and compassion, hurt and horror, sympathy and desire. He takes us into the truth and trauma of the Iraq war in language that is precise, delicate and beautiful, even as it tells of a suicide bomber, a skull shattered by a bullet, a blade in a bloodgroove.

  Andrew Himes

  Beautiful, Suicide, Hurt

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• Oatcakes are a delicate relish when eaten warm with ale.

  Robert Burns

  Ale, Relish, Warm

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• You can't teach a young musician to compose any more than you can teach a delicate plant to grow, but you can guide him a little by planting a stick in here and a stick in there.

  Frederick Delius

  Musician, Littles, Sticks

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• As much as anything, the anglers will clue you in to the midge hatch. You will see them hunched over in concentration like herons. The better ones will be in as close as they can get to the dimpling trout. What you'll notice is the rythmic flicking of casts toward a porpoising trout and the lack of any other motions. The only exception will be the gentle tug that sets a very small hook attached to the leader by a very delicate tippet. The playing of the trout, if it is a good one, will be a cat-and-mouse sort of ecstacy.

  Ed Engle

  Cat, Lakes, Sea

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• To see Stephen Spender fumbling with our rich and delicate language is to experience all the horror of seeing a Sevres vase in the hands of a chimpanzee.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Book, Hands, Vases

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• Christianity ... has produced the iniquities of the Inquisition, the egotism and celibacy of the monasteries, the fury of religious wars, the ferocity of the Hussite, of the Catholic, of the Puritan, of the Spaniard, of the Irish Orangeman and of the Irish Papist; it has divided families, alienated friends, lighted the torch of civil war, and borne the virgin and the greybeard to the burning pile, broken delicate limbs upon the wheel and wrung the souls and bodies of innocent creatures on the rack; all this it has done, and done in the name of God.

  Ouida

  Religious, War, Soul And Body

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• The Spring is here--the delicate footed May,
  With its slight fingers full of leaves and flowers,
  And with it comes a thirst to be away.
  In lovelier scenes to pass these sweeter hours.

  Nathaniel Parker Willis

  Spring, Flower, May

  Nathaniel Parker Willis (1850). “The poetical works of N.P. Willis”, p.183

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• Fine taste is an aspect of genius itself, and is the faculty of delicate appreciation, which makes the best effects of art our own.

  Nathaniel Parker Willis

  Appreciation, Art, Genius

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• As the ego becomes strong it starts surrounding intelligence like a thick layer of darkness. Intelligence is light, ego is darkness. Intelligence is very delicate, ego is very hard. Intelligence is like a roseflower, ego is like a rock. And if you want to survive, they say - the so-called knowers - then you have to become rock-like, you have to be strong, invulnerable. You have to become a citadel, a closed citadel, so you cannot be attacked from outside. You have to become impenetrable.

  Rajneesh

  Strong, Light, Rocks

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• The dance that happens, between actor and director, is a very delicate thing...it's why people tend to work together on many films over and over.

  Sydney Pollack

  Delicate Things, People, Working Together

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• It is eminently a weariable faculty, eminently delicate, and incapable of bearing fatigue; so that if we give it too many objects at a time to employ itself upon, or very grand ones for a long time together, it fails under the effort, becomes jaded, exactly as the limbs do by bodily fatigue, and incapable of answering any farther appeal till it has had rest.

  John Ruskin

  Time, Failure, Long

  John Ruskin (1850). “Modern Painters: pt. 4. Of many things”, p.139

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• I want an intelligent girl whom I can talk about everything. I want her to be my friend, to be partners. I don't like when a girl is rough, but delicate and subtle. I like good manners and not rudeness nor arrogance.

  Bill Kaulitz

  Girl, Intelligent, Arrogance

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• On the one hand, we are faced with the stewardship of this beautiful, subtle, incredibly delicate, fragile planet. On the other, we confront the destiny of our fellow man, our brothers. How can we say that we are followers of Christ if this dual responsibility does not seem to us the essence and heart of our religion?

  Barbara Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth

  Beautiful, Brother, Heart

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• Hunger is never delicate.

  Samuel Johnson

  Food, Cooking, Hunger

  Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.163

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• If one is the kind of creature I am and wants to do the kind of writing I want to do, an undisturbed bourgeois existence with no distractions seems in order. A single meeting outside the family upsets one's whole inner web, makes one start off on two-days' thinking and weighing, destroys a delicate balance etc. etc. ... I now have enough friends to last me a lifetime and that is enough. I am going to close the doors and hibernate at least for a couple of years. I am frightfully depressed about my work. It seems to me perfectly mediocre.

  May Sarton

  Couple, Writing, Thinking

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• Hair is the most delicate and lasting of our materials, and survives us, like love. It is so light, so gentle; so escaping from the idea of death, that, with a lock of hair belonging to a child or friend, we may almost look up to heaven and compare notes with the angelic nature,--may almost say, "I have a piece of thee here not unworthy of thy being now.

  Leigh Hunt

  Children, Escaping, Like Love

  Leigh Hunt (1870). “Men, Women, and Books: A Selection of Sketches, Essays, and Critical Memoirs from His Uncollected Prose Writings”, p.145

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• ... the most ordinary everyday living is as delicate, as breath-taking, as difficult, takes as terrific physical and mental control and effort, as walking a tightrope.

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh

  Effort, Everyday, Ordinary

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• Some delicate matters must be treated like pins, because if they are not seized by the right end, we get pricked.

  Jean Antoine Petit-Senn

  Matter, Ends, Pins

  "Tools Of Speech". Book by Maturin M.ballou, 1886.

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• I was a poet too; but modern taste
  Is so refined and delicate and chaste,
  That verse, whatever fire the fancy warms,
  Without a creamy smoothness has no charms.
  Thus, all success depending on an ear,
  And thinking I might purchase it too dear,
  If sentiment were sacrific'd to sound,
  And truth cut short to make a period round,
  I judg'd a man of sense could scarce do worse
  Than caper in the morris-dance of verse.

  William Cowper

  Cutting, Men, Thinking

  William Cowper (1830). “Poems ... With a sketch of his life and a vindication of his religious principles and character. Third edition, corrected and enlarged. [With a portrait.]”, p.14

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• The raillery which is consistent with good-breeding is a gentle animadversion of some foible, which, while it raises the laugh in the rest of the company, doth not put the person rallied out of countenance, or expose him to shame or contempt. On the contrary, the jest should be so delicate that the object of it should be capable of joining in the mirth it occasions.

  Henry Fielding

  Joining In, Laughing, Mirth

  Henry Fielding, Thomas Roscoe (1851). “The Works of Henry Fielding: Complete in One Volume”, p.643

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• In an age where the lowered eyelid is just a sign of fatigue, the delicate game of love is pining away. Freud and flirtation are poor companions.

  Marya Mannes

  Love Is, Games, Dating

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• Young ladies should take care of themselves. Young ladies are delicate plants. They should take care of their health and their complexion. My dear, did you change your stockings?

  Jane Austen

  Care, Plant, Should

  Jane Austen (2014). “Jane Austen Collection: illustrated - 6 eBooks and 140+ illustrations”, p.1082, Ageless Reads

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• A gentleman's first characteristic is that fineness of structure in the body which renders it capable of the most delicate sensation; and of structure in the mind which renders it capable of the most delicate sympathies; one may say simply "fineness of nature.

  John Ruskin

  Mind, Gentleman, Firsts

  John Ruskin (1868). “pt. VI: Of leaf beauty. pt. VII: Of cloud beauty. pts. VIII-IX: Of ideas of relation”, p.278

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• Food's delicate. You have to handle it with finesse. You can't just be a big ogre.

  April Bloomfield

  Chef, Finesse, Bigs

  "Burger Queen" by Lauren Collins, www.newyorker.com. November 22, 2010.

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• I wonder why men can get serious at all. They have this delicate long thing hanging outside their bodies, which goes up and down by its own will. First of all, having it outside your body is terribly dangerous. If I were a man I would have a fantastic castration complex to the point that I wouldn't be able to do a thing. Second, the inconsistency of it, like carrying a chance time alarm or something. If I were a man I would always be laughing at myself.

  Yoko Ono

  Men, Long, Laughing

  Yoko Ono (1970). “Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings by Yoko Ono”, p.280, Simon and Schuster

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